by Ilsa J. Bick
“Uh . . . no, no, I don’t need that. Thanks.”
She rolled her eyes and started walking again. “You’re welcome.”
“So who does the baby belong to?”
She shrugged. “Could be anyone’s, right? Until the anthropologist tells us how long the body’s been there, we can’t date anything or anybody. But get this . . . the house wasn’t always the way it is now. There’s the original house that dates way back to the 1720s when it was owned by a French trapper.”
“You’re kidding. I didn’t know the French . . .” My voice died, and my throat seized up.
“What?” Confused, Sarah shot a look at me and then turned to stare in the direction of the bike rack. “Oh,” she said, only it came out more like a moan.
Dekker was there, standing next to a red motorcycle— probably his dad’s. When he saw that we’d spotted them, he elbowed his two guys—Curly? Larry? I didn’t think they were the same two sandrats, so probably Athos and Porthos, but who knew. Their heads turned our way at the same time, and it was weird, like a pack of animals watching prey.
Without realizing what I was doing, I stepped in front of Sarah. “What do you want?”
“Now, is that any way to talk to someone who could press charges and get your ass off probation and into jail?” Dekker gave a silent dog’s laugh, and then his eyes shifted. “Hey there, Sarah.”
Sarah was silent. I felt her sidle up to my right elbow.
Dekker pulled a face. “What, you don’t want to talk to me?”
“Leave her out of this,” I said. (I know, I know: like a bad movie.)
“What you going to do, Killer? You going to hex me too? I hear you’ve been up to your old tricks again.” To Sarah: “I’d watch my step around this boy, if I was you.”
“Well, thank heavens, I’m not you, and no, I don’t want to talk to you,” said Sarah. “I’ve got nothing to say to you. But remember one thing, Dekker: I’m a witness. You do anything, I’m here to say what happened.”
“Ooooh.” Dekker mugged for Athos and Porthos, who cracked up, their cigarettes bobbing. “I’m so scared of the preacher’s kid.” His eyes slitted. “Come on, Sarah, you know we could have some fun together. Remember last summer? You were happy to see me then....”
Poor Sarah was the shade of a plum. “Hey,” I interrupted. “You want to talk to me, here I am. What is it?”
“What, you want her too? Well, good luck with that. These preachers’ kids, they get all hot, but when it comes to putting out—”
“What do you want?” I asked again.
“Why, I do believe the boy’s sweet on our little Sarah.” Dekker twisted around to grin at Athos and Porthos. “Won’t he get a surprise.”
“Fine.” Stomach jumping, I turned to Sarah. “They’re just dicking around,” I said, as casually as I could, although the words felt strange in my mouth. “Let’s go.”
“What did you . . . Hey, hey!” Dekker’s voice was sharp and peremptory. “Don’t you turn your back on me, you little prick!”
I turned back, expecting that the next thing I’d see would be his fist hurtling for my nose. But nothing happened. I waited a beat and then said, “What do you want?”
“What I want,” he bit off the word, “is for you to get your ass out to my place this Saturday. My bike’s gonna be ready, and you still got to make good on fixing it. You got that?”
“Yeah, I got it.” That would also mean I couldn’t work on Eisenmann’s barn, but the barn wasn’t going anywhere, and since Dekker would find some way to break my arms if I didn’t show up, better I do his bike. “We got to go.”
“Yeah? Where to?”
“Anywhere you’re not.”
Dekker feigned a blink. “Excuse me? Say what?”
This time, I kept my mouth shut.
“Naw, come on, Killer,” Dekker said. Athos and Porthos were smirking the way coyotes grin. Dekker swaggered a few steps toward us; I eased back, bumping into Sarah. “Come on,” said Dekker, “I want to hear it again.”
I said nothing. Dekker was maybe a foot away, close enough to throw a fast jab or flick out his knife again. He must’ve read my face because his wolfish eyes shifted to my arms. The bandages were long gone as were the Steri-Strips, but when his gaze clicked back, he made a little feint and laughed when I flinched. “What’s the matter? Scared I might cut you again?”
“Dekker.” It was Sarah. When I looked, she had her cell out and she’d taken five steps back, out of Dekker’s reach. Her thumb was poised over the Talk button. “You have ten seconds before I call 911.”
Dekker’s smile dribbled away, and his eyes sharpened. “You don’t want to do that, Sarah. I was just playing.” But he backed up a step, then two.
“Great. I’m not.” Sarah sounded a lot older than seventeen. Her voice was flat, no-nonsense. “Now you’ve got five seconds.”
Dekker’s eyes narrowed. “You little holier than thou bi . . .”
Sarah jabbed Talk.
“Son of a . . . ” Dekker’s face was purple, and he was so angry that his lips trembled. He whirled on his heel as Sarah said, “Hello, yes, this is Sarah Schoenberg, and I’m at the school and—”
“Let’s go!” Dekker stomped his bike to life and throttled up, gunning the engine. Athos and Porthos were already astride their bikes, and the three whipped their motorcycles out of the parking lot. “Saturday!” Dekker screamed back at me, and then the three growled away.
When I turned to Sarah, she was closing her phone. “What about the dispatcher?” I said.
“Oh, that.” She eyed me calmly. “The battery’s dead.”
As we were getting on our bikes, I said to Sarah, “Maybe this is none of my business, but what was all that . . . did you and Dekker... ?”
My God, the things that were popping out of my mouth. What was I thinking? Sarah was the only person who would talk to me, and now I was digging into her life like s ome nosy brother.
“You’re right.” She pulled out her bike and swiped at the kickstand. “None of your business.”
The Historical Society was housed in an old, wooden two-story mill house next to the river, and there was only one car in the parking lot when we got there. The main reception area was large and filled with a mish-mash of bric-a-brac from different periods in Winter’s history. The room smelled musty, like it needed a good airing.
The lady behind the front desk looked up, smiled when she saw Sarah, and said, “Hello, dear.” She only glanced at me before continuing, “How is the research coming?”
“Great,” said Sarah. “Christian’s doing a project and needed some help.”
“Oh.” The lady’s gray eyes fastened on me. “What exactly are you researching?”
“Mordecai Witek,” I said. “I’m especially interested in the murder.”
“Yes, isn’t everyone.”
“There isn’t much on the Internet.”
She gave me a tight smile that showed no teeth. “Some things are best forgotten. You didn’t live through the war, so you wouldn’t know, but there are many of us who are just as happy to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “So how do I find out more?”
Her smile wilted. She pointed toward a side room. “In there. Newspapers, principally. Sarah knows how to use the microfiche and databases. There are two terminals, so feel free. I am, however, leaving promptly at five.”
That gave us about an hour and a half. We thanked her and headed for the microfiche and computer terminals. Old photos hung on the walls: the foundry, the town hall, and groups of people in old-fashioned clothes waiting as a trolley trundled down the center of Main Street.
“Is she always like that?” I asked. When Sarah shook her head, I continued, “So why is she giving me a hard time?” Sarah just shrugged.
The microfiche reader squatted next to long gray file cabinets, and Sarah pointed to a label that read in spidery ink script: Tribune 1/1887–12/1923. “Each drawer has boxes wi
th microfiche of the paper dating back to when it started in 1883.” She pulled open one of the metal drawers, which was filled with square boxes, each representing a year’s worth of newspapers. “Over there, next to the computers, is the New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can cross-reference once you’ve got a date.” Tugging on a pair of white gloves lying in a box on top of the file cabinet, she pulled out a random box, thumbed on the microfiche reader, and showed me how to thread the film and which buttons to push to advance the film, go back, and zoom. “Once you get the hang of it, it’s really not so bad,” she said. “The layout of these old papers is pretty similar. National headlines at the top, local news about halfway down, obits in the back. You get a sense for what you’re looking for; you should be able to find it pretty quickly.”
“Mmmm.” It sounded like a lot of work. The computer databases were straightforward enough. Typing in Mordecai Mendel Witek didn’t do much more than bring up the same information I already knew, though.
“Who’s that?” Sarah asked, reading over my shoulder.
“An artist who used to live here. He was pretty famous, for a while.”
“You’re kidding. In Winter?” She read the Wikipedia entry. “Wow. I didn’t know any of that. No one ever mentions it.”
“You heard the lady out front. Some things are best forgotten.” I thought of Mrs. Krauss. “Some people probably want the past to remain just that. Dead and buried and forgotten.”
“Yeah, but a murder’s pretty sensational. At least you’ve got a date. I’m still backtracking through old deeds to figure out who lived in Dr. Rainier’s house when.”
At the mention of Dr. Rainier’s name, I groaned. “Oh crap. I forgot my appointment.”
“With whom?”
“Ah ... Dr. Rainier. She’s ... uh ... I’m supposed to see her.”
“Oh.” Sarah arched her eyebrows. “Well, call her.”
“Your cell’s dead.”
“Christian. Miss Maynard has a phone.”
I didn’t want to use the phone in front of that woman, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I dragged back to the front and explained that I needed to make a personal call. To my relief, Miss Maynard pointed me to a small office behind the front desk. “Use the phone in there. I like to keep this area free of traffic.”
“Uh. Sure. Thanks.” Like there were people breaking down the doors to get in. Once inside the office, I closed the door, dialed Dr. Rainier’s number, and prayed that it would flip to voice mail.
Of course, it didn’t. “Dr. Rainier.”
“Uh, Dr. Rainier, it’s Christian.”
“Christian. Where are you? Your session started fifteen minutes ago.”
I said, “I’m really sorry. It just slipped my mind. Could I make it up tomorrow?”
“Well . . .” I heard her flipping pages. “I don’t have any hours, I’m sorry. Can you make it today? Say, later? Six fifteen? Otherwise, I can see you Monday, but . . . I think it would be better if you came in.”
I calculated rapidly. The Historical Society would close at five. It would take me a half hour to bike to Dr. Rainier’s office, which was on the other side of town. I’d have to wait, but I was the one who’d blown the appointment time, so . . . I could do homework in the waiting room. “Sure, that’s okay. I don’t mind waiting. Uhm . . . am I in trouble?”
“For missing an appointment? Of course not. I could be Freudian about it and suggest that maybe you want to miss, but you don’t have to be an analyst to know that. Yesterday was pretty awful.”
That was an understatement. “No, it’s not that,” I said and was surprised when I meant it. “I’m at the Historical Society.” I gave her a thumbnail sketch of what I’d learned so far and added, “I wanted to find out more because I think . . . well, it might be important. Maybe it would explain some of my dreams.”
She was quiet a moment. “I’ve done a little research of my own, and I’ll be very interested in what you find, Christian.”
“Research on what?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
“Okay.” I thought of something. “How is Mr. Witek?”
“Fine. None the worse for wear, although he’s definitely waking up. He still can’t talk, but he seems to be responding more purposefully.”
That would go along with the way my nightmares seemed to have more . . . coherence. They were still fragmented and panicky, still just a collage of sensations and images, but this last one definitely felt as if there was some story there too.
I said, “That’s what I thought.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll explain when I see you.”
I could hear her smile. “Touché. Anything else?”
“Yes. What is Mr. Witek’s first name?”
“Uhm ... David.”
Of course. “Okay. Thanks. Uhm, you wouldn’t happen to know if he has any brothers or sisters, would you?”
“Sorry, can’t help you there. All I know is that he’s got no living relatives.”
“Okay. Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome, Christian. See you in a couple hours.”
“Well?” asked Sarah when I got back.
“She was cool.” I slid into a chair before a computer monitor, typed Marta Witek into a couple of the databases. In my dreams or time travels or telepathic contacts—I really didn’t know what they were—Marta seemed a lot older than the little boy, David. If I was remembering right, David’s father had told both of them to stay away from the foundry. So maybe it was worth a shot.
There was nothing in the databases.
I decided to cut to the chase. I tugged a pair of gloves and found the microfiche film spool for the relevant year. I threaded the film onto the machine and then fast-forwarded through the newspaper pages, pausing occasionally as they flickered by to get my bearings. I slowed at October, and it was then that I realized that Winter’s newspaper back then had been a weekly that appeared every Wednesday. So there would be nothing on the exact date in question—October 20, the day Walter Brotz’s body had been found. The Milwaukee newspaper item had appeared the following Tuesday, so I would have to go to the October 24 edition of the Winter paper to find the story.
The story, not surprisingly, was front page news, a screaming headline:
LOCAL MAN STABBED; FOUNDRY OWNER INJURED
MANHUNT ENTERS FOURTH DAY
“Holy crap, I found it,” I said to Sarah. She crowded in to read over my shoulder.
Local residents continue to express shock and disbelief over the brutal stabbing death of Walter Brotz, age 45, on the evening of October 19. Karl Anderson, of 2752 County Road AA, made the grisly discovery upon arriving at his barn on the morning of October 20. Mr. Anderson reported hearing groans issuing from the barn and discovered the murdered man in a lake of blood. The murder weapon, a hayfork, was still embedded in the victim’s chest. Lying nearby, Anderson discovered foundry owner and town celebrity Charles Randall Eisenmann, who was also injured. Mr. Eisenmann is currently being treated at St. Agnes Hospital, where doctors report that the millionaire is weak from loss of blood but out of immediate danger.
Sheriff Jasper Cage issued a statement reporting that Mr. Eisenmann has named Mordecai Mendel Witek, age 40, as the attacker. No official motive has as yet been uncovered and law enforcement officials decline to speculate; however, rumors have begun circulating over Mr. Witek’s apparent infatuation with Milwaukee heiress Catherine Bleverton, age 25. Readers will recall that Mr. Eisenmann and Miss Bleverton recently announced their engagement and are scheduled to be married in the spring of next year. This reporter cannot confirm stories that Miss Bleverton’s house staff have been taken in for questioning. Miss Bleverton could not be reached for comment, and it is not known if she has been questioned in conjunction with the investigation.
Sheriff Cage has enlisted the services of the Clarendon and Hunter counties sheriff’s departments to coordinate the manhunt now under way, although as ti
me passes, the prospects for Witek’s apprehension dim. At the current time, Witek’s immediate family—his wife, Chana, and their two children, Marta, age 17, and David, age 8—remain in protective custody.
“Protective custody,” Sarah said. “Hunh. More like the sheriff was probably keeping them under lock and key so Witek couldn’t hide out with them.”
“No, I think it’s more than that.” I pointed at the heading of the next paragraph.
Jewish Community Stunned
Albert Saltzman, president of Congregation Beth Tikva, has expressed his profound shock and sorrow over the news. “None of us would ever have believed that Mordecai would be capable of this,” Saltzman said. “The one thing we hope is that our Christian friends and neighbors realize that this is the act of one man and not reflective of Winter’s Jewish community, which has existed here for over fifty years. Winter is our home, and for those of us who’ve recently arrived from the horrors of Hitler’s Reich, Winter has been our salvation. Our commitment to social reform has nothing to do with our deep and profound appreciation and love for our Christian brothers.”
Despite this sentiment, tensions between Winter’s Jews and local residents have been building for several months over Eisenmann Manufacturing Company’s decision to utilize prison labor to make up for the current nationwide manpower shortage. The Jewish community has been particularly vocal in opposing both the importation and use of prison labor, and their sanctuary has been the scene of both union meetings and community protests against the same.
“I still don’t like it,” says one Jewish man, who asked not to be identified. “Bringing those men here? It’s a slap in our face, that’s what it is. I don’t care how many beans rot in the fields or cast-iron tubs don’t get made, these men should never have been brought into our midst.”
